Big cat sightings — are they real?

A Canada Goose displays its wings.

By Kevin Wright
for the Daily Ledger
Posted Nov. 27, 2013

He was on his morning stroll when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. It was moving from left to right in front of him. It was sleek and powerful looking. It was a cat — a big cat — a cougar!

At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. After all, who would expect to be seeing something like this in central Illinois? The man described the scene to me, giving all the details, and was still not clear what he had just seen. “Sounds like you just had an experience with a cougar,” I said.

The entire sighting lasted just a minute or two, but it was enough to etch in his mind that cougars do exist in Illinois. And there was a time in my mind that I thought that the whole cougar thing could be thrown in with Bigfoot sightings, but not anymore.

Just the other day, a cougar was shot and killed by Illinois Department of Natural Resources officials in northern Illinois. It was spotted in and around a farm house. But for some reason, the IDNR decided it had better kill the cat, even though the cougar had not threatened anyone or anything. I ponder this decision.

There has also been a trail cam photo of a cougar floating around. I believe it was from the southern part of the state, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Then, just last week, I heard of another sighting just north of Canton. It supposedly ran across the highway in front of a car. Again, this one is just a rumored sighting, and I did not get any other information on the incident.

If you put it all, together there have been several sightings of the big cats over the last several years. Only a handful of those have actually been confirmed, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Canton, Lewistown, Smithfield, Farmington, Cuba and Pekin are just a few of the places where sightings have taken place.

Don’t get me wrong — I do feel that many of the rumored sightings are nothing more than someone’s yellow lab or some other critter. But there are a select few that I will always wonder if it was indeed a cougar.

While I do not think that there is an actual resident population of cougars in Illinois, I do feel there are some free roaming males from the Black Hills that are in search of new territories. I also question the fact that if these cats knew they were in Illinois, they might just turn around and go back to where they came from!

In other news, I write this just soon after the closing of the first deer shotgun season. And it appears that things were a little slow. The word from many hunters was they were not seeing the deer. Of course, the weather was a bit brutal for the opening weekend, and that might have played a factor.

But it is a fact that disease might be playing a major hand in the decline of the Illinois deer population. Blue tongue disease has been tough on the deer the last few years. The drought conditions we have suffered through the last few years have been just has tough on wildlife as well. Countless dead deer have been found, and despite claims that the disease was less prevalent this year, dead deer are still being found. And now toss in the mix of numerous deceased deer being found in cornfields while farmers have been working their fields, and we have a story on our hands!

It is true that some areas are being hit harder than others. In areas that I photograph, I have been seeing deer and lots of them. But travel 20 miles or less in any direction, and it is a different story. Something is not right. There is still a lot of deer hunting time left, but once these seasons are over, the deer population question has to be looked at in a hard way. Some things might have to be changed to turn this situation around!

Driving the other day, I spotted two Tundra Swans in a field just outside of Canton. Tundras have a black bill compared to the orange bill of the all-to common Mute Swans that have taken over our marshes. We typically get a few Tundras and Trumpeter Swans in our area every year.

Emiquon is a hot spot for these species as well as several other species of birds, including Loons. Right now, you could head to Emiquon and have an excellent time of birding for many species.

Fall kind of slipped by in a hurry. One day, we are talking about the colors coming on, and then here comes the wind and rain and just as quickly as they came on. All the leaves are gone. Now the dark grays are the colors of choice. Find water, and you will find some exciting displays of wildlife. Don’t miss out on it!

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